Is the human body best designed to eat plant foods, animal foods, or both? Are we herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores? I hope these questions can open a discussion on nutritional and medicinal properties of food.
The key here is to be evidence based. The human physiology is designed to digest both animal and plant foods. You only need to consider dentition and bile acids and also the human range of required essential nutrients which our bodies cannot make. Adequate amount s of the later are best achieved through a variety of foods from both animal and plant sources. However, with modern opprotunities it is easier to obtain nutrients but also easier to overeat with less requirements for energy expenditure.
We need to have moderation but variety, plant food in the diet should certainly outnumber meat intake but this is also the basis of most dietary recomendations.
Looking back to paleolithic diets does not really help. Life expectancy should also be taken into acoount. When we learned to cook we imporved our nutrition. In more recent times we have growth taller, live longer and due to good nutrition and other medical and sanitation devepments on the whole has better health and quality of life.
To say if meat was safe in the past, it must be safe now does not allow for the changes in the meat and meat products that we eat. There is a considerable evidence base for red and processed meats to increase colon cancer risk (WCRF 2007). The key is moderation and dose effects.
The GI tract of humans is intermediate between carnivores and herbivores. Prior to humans becoming landed animals (farmers) they were gatherers and scavengers. After becoming landed animals, the diseases that are present today in western cultures began to appear with greater frequency. Examination of 5000 yr old mummies supports this. Interestingly, diet and social conditions (culture) are the prime determining factors for the frequency of GI pathology. As an example, Indians have a low rate of most non-infective pathologies than those of western cultures. Yet, when they relocate to western areas (example: the USA) the frequency of each pathology is now similar to those of the USA. There is some probability that feeding herbivores meat makes them more prone to develop prion induced diseases. True vegetarians when given carnitine (present in meat) do not respond with increased levels of TMAO. Because carnitine is associated with increased levels of substances that lead to cardio-vascular disease, and carnitine is now known to induce synthesis and secretion of TMAO, and TMAO is produced by colon bacteria, diet is important. In this case, a diet that is associated with high frequency of pathology and its negative effects dependent upon bacteria does no harm if the bacteria present in the colon receive antibiotics that reduce their numbers.
Healthy Balance diet is one which contains different types of food in such quantities and proportions so that the need of calories, proteins, minerals, vitamins and others nutrients is adequately net and a small provisions is made for extra nutrients to withstand short duration of leanness.
Moreover, Diet which stimulate blood Gultathione, which have capacity to scavenge free radicals will definitely sounds as healthy diet. must be used as fresh, low fat, less oil cooked, must not have any artificial additives etc.
Dear Narayanan, The recently published study (Nature Med) suggesting the actual cause for development of cardio-vascular pathology is indicative of what may now appear to be a rather complicated series of events. Genetically based selection processes by the environment yield distinct dietary needs. These genetic factors remain with the individual regardless of new environments. On the other hand, the effects of the environment (culture) can also be transitional and are not manifested in the genome. That is why I gave the example of culture and the translocation of a human from an area of low incidence of a given pathology to one that has a significantly higher rate. Supplementation may improve, and in many cases it is needed, but it will not override the genetic basis for the problem. The idea that there is some universally defined dietary formula will not work. Age, sex, genetics, environment probably are the factors that define the optimum diet for a given individual.
Respected Dr Leonard, thanks alot for the suggestions and a over view of the fact. i highly appreciate.
Geir
1. We have no enzymes to break down plant cell walls to get at the nutrients inside.
2. Neither have herbivores, but all herbivores employ bacteria to convert vegetable fibre such as cellulose, of which cell walls are composed, either in their compound stomachs, if ruminants, or in their cecum/colon if hind-gut digesters.
3. We can do neither. Over 90% of our absorption is from the small intestine, which should be sterile, with as little as 2% of energy from our colon from bacterial action.
Conclusion: Our GI tract is unsuited for a plant-based diet thus we must be basically carnivores. The 'diseases of civilisation' only started to manifest themselves after the last major Ice Age ended and we swapped meat for grain.
The question was: What is a healthy diet?
The answer is: A healthy diet is a diet which is suited to us as a species. And that, for us, is one based on fat meat.
For more detail, please see my http://www.second-opinions.co.uk/should-all-animals-eat-a-high-fat-low-carb-diet.html
Dr. Khan, what you speak about is similar to the Hay diet. This is a diet developed by the New York physician William Howard Hay (1866 – 1940) in the 1920s. Also called the food combining diet. Dr Hay diet claims to work by separating food into three groups: alkaline, acidic, and neutral. Acid foods are not combined with the alkaline ones. Acidic foods are protein rich, such as meat, fish, dairy, etc. Alkaline foods are carbohydrate rich, such as rice, grains and potatoes. However, a food combining diet is hardly better than a "balanced diet".
The claim that humans 'need' to base our diet around meat is not necessarily true. Evolutionarily, yes, we may have needed to kill and eat animals in order to obtain adequate calories, but with the absolute surplus of calories available now, and our knowledge of how to obtain a balance of nutrients (with or without meat), this reasoning does not apply. The benefits of a plant based diet have been proven time and time again, as have the 'issues' with excessive meat consumption (the recent Nature paper on L-carnitine and promotion of atherosclerosis, to name one example).
That being said, I believe a 'healthy diet' needs to factor in how an individual feels while following said diet. Feeling the pressure to fill one's plate with every new super food and avoid every food for which there is even a shred of evidence suggesting it could be detrimental clearly does not exemplify health either. A healthy diet is balanced, varied, and consumed with (at least some degree of) enjoyment.
Biochemical individuality must be mentioned in the discussion about diet:
“the nutritional microenvironment of our body cells is crucially important to our health, and deficiencies in this enviromnent consititute a major cause of disease”
Ref.: Roger J. Williams (1893 – 1988), American professor of chemistry.
http://www.bjorklundnutrition.net/2012/07/biochemical-individuality/
Lilli
I knows of no convincing evidence that a plant-based diet is healthier than a meat-based one.
Don't take the recent Nature article on carnitine too seriously.
How can carnitine be bad for the coronary arteries yet good for the heart as a whole?
Many studies, including a recent one, have indicated that carnitine is beneficial for heart disease, maybe due to its cardiotonic effects over the cardiac function (1, 2, 3, 4)
So, I can’t swallow the idea contained in the study suggesting carnitine leads to atherosclerosis and its deleterious consequences (5).
And why, when we have been eating red meat for the whole of our existence as a species, should it suddenly become dangerous in the last century?
As Surgeon Captain Dr T L Cleave famously said: ‘For a modern disease to be related to an old-fashioned food is one of the most ludicrous things I ever heard in my life’.
References
1) Beneficial effect of L-carnitine in the reduction of necrotic área in acute myocardial infarction, Rebuzzi AG et al, Drugs Exp Clin Res. 1984;10:219-223
2) Valor terapêutico de la L-carnitina em la reducción del área necrótica en el infarto agudo del miocardio, Sanchez NVM et al, Rev Asoc Mex Med Crit y Ter Int 1997;11(4):98-105
3) Role of Nutriceutical Agents in Cardiovascular Diseases: An Update, by Arshad M. Safi, MD, Cynthia A. Samala, RD, Richard A. Stein, MD Cardiovasc Rev Rep 24(7):381-385,391, 2003. Part 1 and Part 2
4) DiNicolantonio JJ, Lavie CJ, Fares H, et al. L-carnitine in the secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Mayo Clin Proc 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.mayocp.2013.02.007. Available at: http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org.
5) Koeth RA et al. Intestinal microbiota metabolism of l-carnitine, a nutrient in red meat, promotes atherosclerosis, Nature Medicine, 2013Year published:. Available at http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3145.html
It is quite clear that during 50000 years, little has taken place with respect to the evolution of Homo sapiens. And up to 10000 years ago, man was essentially a gatherer, scavenger and hunter. Transition from this stage to that of a landed animal created conditions for the development of pathologies associated with modern times. The idea that a diet that consists of veggies, fruits and leafy plants is better than the diet afforded from eating meat is not supported by our GI tract, enzymes involved in digestion, and the presence of bacteria that aid in the metabolic process of meat protein digestion, as well as protection from accumulated toxins from metabolism. Culture and environment are primary factors associated with pathology of the GI tract. When culture provided relief from infections, life expectancy increased dramatically. When culture eliminates strive and stress and environmental factors that promote the presence of toxins, mutagens, etc in what we eat, drink and breath, man should be able to live a healthy 125 plus years. It is as simple as that. Forget about looking to diet as the means to achieve a long and healthy life.
I tend to agree, partially, with what Lilli and Tommy suggest. There must be a general and varied pattern (pyramid chart), focusing towards personalised nutrition. We must not disregard growing evidence on the individual effects of food, depending not only in genetics, but also the cultural background and lifestyles. The proportion of meat/veg foods may be an issue of discussion, and indeed there are some evidences in both senses.
I do not sincerely support the idea of a meat-based diet as being the most fit to humans. At least the evidence on deleterious effects of saturated fat on health, mainly overweight/obesity worldwide will not be questioned?
50,000 thousand years ago, the diet probably was much higher in fat and mainly meat-based, but there was not television, people didn't spend the whole day on a seat, and safe in their houses but running and with loads of energy spent on surviving, We cannot support a healthy diet without taking into account the whole background around that diet!
The key here is to be evidence based. The human physiology is designed to digest both animal and plant foods. You only need to consider dentition and bile acids and also the human range of required essential nutrients which our bodies cannot make. Adequate amount s of the later are best achieved through a variety of foods from both animal and plant sources. However, with modern opprotunities it is easier to obtain nutrients but also easier to overeat with less requirements for energy expenditure.
We need to have moderation but variety, plant food in the diet should certainly outnumber meat intake but this is also the basis of most dietary recomendations.
Looking back to paleolithic diets does not really help. Life expectancy should also be taken into acoount. When we learned to cook we imporved our nutrition. In more recent times we have growth taller, live longer and due to good nutrition and other medical and sanitation devepments on the whole has better health and quality of life.
To say if meat was safe in the past, it must be safe now does not allow for the changes in the meat and meat products that we eat. There is a considerable evidence base for red and processed meats to increase colon cancer risk (WCRF 2007). The key is moderation and dose effects.
A healthy diet is a balanced diet, balanced in carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins and minerals and essential micronutrients. Although, the body compensates for deficiency of carbohydrates, by glycogenolysis or neoglucogenesis. Excess carbohydrates may replenish the fat stores, however, it is difficult to replenish proteins other than through the diet. Anything in excess of daily requirements is not healthy and hence keep every thing in balance by eating a balanced diet.
According to Ayurveda, a Indian medical science, the healthy food is that which is suitable for our body constitute. There are seven body constituents mentioned in Ayurveda which comes by birth only. So herbohorus food is ggod for digestion while nonveg take more time for digestion.
Ashok and Omer.
Ashok. I agree with your Ayurveda definition of healthy food. And this definition, that we should eat what we are adapted and designed to eat, is surely self-evident.
Omer. I would define a 'balanced diet' as any diet which contains all the nutrients our bodies need, in the correct proportions. Fat meat, including organ meats does just that. Dr William Beaumont, in experiments on Alexis St Martin in the mid 19th century, showed that raw meat is easier to digest than cooked; plants, on the other hand need to be well cooked to break down the cell walls in order to present their contents to the digestion. Cooking is not a natural process.
We have no biochemical or biological need to eat anything at all from the plant world. We have no need for exogenous carbohydrates as our bodies are well equipped to produce glucose (which only a few body cells need) endogenously from glycerol released when fatty acids from stored triglycerides are used for energy.
This is the way many peoples in the world live - healthily - today. Here are just a few examples of peoples and what they eat:
Lapps and Sami – reindeer
Siberians – reindeer and other game
Inuit of Greenland and Canada – seals, fish
North American Plains Indians – bison (buffalo) until 20th century
Marsh Arabs – camels
Berbers – camels
Nagas – pigs
Maasai – cattle
Samburu – cattle
Gauchos – cattle
And there many more . . . .
Yes, Tommy, I am convinced that we are basically carnivores, although I don't eat a meat only diet. I do add some veges as a garnish. But to get to your question.
Our teeth can be misleading because they are unique to us as a species. They do not conform to the classic 'carnivore model' neither do they conform to the' herbivore model'. That said, we can rule out certain types of food. For example, the enamel on our teeth is too thin for us to chew leaves in the same way as, say, a horse or a gorilla does. And our molars are not the right shape for grinding vegetation - but they are for crushing meat.
Since we have no need to consume starches, the alpha-amylase could be a throwback to when our distant ancestors did eat plants, just as our appendix is. Or, as palaeolithic Man would have been unlikely to waste any part of an animal, perhaps it was retained to help digest the contents of a killed herbivore's intestine. The amylase "at the front line" is inactivated when it gets to our stomachs, so doesn't have time to do much at all. That, in itself, suggests that it is not important.
Now, my turn: Can you name any enzyme that will digest cellulose so that amylase can actually get at the starch in our mouths? You will counter, perhaps, by saying we should chew our food more. But that is woefully inefficient. Even juicing plants with a dedicated machine is only about 50% efficient. So how would our have ancestors managed?
We need to be physiologically correct here.
1) Human salivary amylase is only the first stage of carbohydrate digestion. It can act for 15- 30 mins and in the stomach food buffers gastrc acid so salivary amylase continues to work.
2) Much more importantly the pancreas secretes another amylase which is responsible for most of the starch digestion and there are several tri and diasaccharidase enzymes on the brush border of the mucosal cells of the small intestine which complete the digestion of starch as well as specific enzymes to digest lactose in milk and sucrose.
3)There are then very specific transporter proteins to speedly absorb glucose, galactose (which are linked to sodium transport and the sodium potassium atpase pump) and less speedily fructose by facilitated transport.
4)Any carbohydrate not digested and absorbed in the small intestine is then available for fermentation by our very rich and diverse colonic bacteria ecosystem that enables to get energy from starch, and a whole range of dietary fibre carbohydrates including cellulose from plant foods. We will ferment nearly all the cellulose in cabbage and similar foods and half the fibre in wheat bran.
5) The chewing action will break open many plant structures and the acid in the stomach along with the very powerful grinding action of gastric contractions will free up starch and other nutrients. When foods were tougher our jaws were more robust and muscular to cope with this.
5) Plant foods also provide us with essential fatty acids n-6 and n-3 fatty acids and are important sourcesof vitamins and minerals.
6) We can see very clearly that man has been ingesting plant foods for eons and is well adapted to do so.
I beg to differ, Christine, on some points.
1. We are not well adapted to eating plant foods. Apart from what has already been said, raw starch is so problematic it cannot have been part of our natural diet before the advent of cooking. And that was relatively recent in our history.
2: Our colons are more concerned with absorbing water from food and preparing indigestible waste for release from the body. Certainly fermentation of undigested carbohydrates does take place in our colons. However, this is a very minor source of nutrient absorption - possibly as little as 2% of calories.[1]
3: Are linoleic acid (LA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) essential fatty acids for humans? These plant 'EFAs' are 18 carbon chain fatty acids; however, we need longer chain 20:4(ω-6) AA and 22:6(ω-3) DHA, and "humans maintain an inefficient ability to chain elongate and desaturate 18 carbon fatty acids to their product 20 and 22 carbon fatty acids",[2] I would suggest that LA and ALA are poor substitutes for what are the real EFAs for us. Certainly we would not have the size of brain we have if we had relied on 18 chain plant fatty acids during our evolution.
4: Every essential vitamin, mineral, trace element, EFA, amino acid, et al, is to be found in food of animal origin. We do not need to eat plants for any of them - and that includes vitamin C.
I am not saying we shouldn't eat any plant foods, just that we do not need to.
References
1. Livesey, G. & Elia, M. Short-chain fatty acids as an energy source in the colon: metabolism and clinical implications. In: Cummings JH, Rombeau JL, Sakata T, (eds). Physiological and Clinical Aspects of Short-Chain Fatty Acids. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 1995; pp. 427-483.
2. Emken, R.A., Adlof, R.O., Rohwedder, W.K., and Gulley, R.M., Comparison of linolenic and linoleic acid metabolism in man: Influence of dietary linoleic acid. In: Sinclair, A., and Gibson, R. (Eds.), Essential Fatty Acids and Eicosanoids. Invited Papers from the Third International Conference. AOCS Press, Champaign IL; 1992, pp. 23–25.
The human gastrointestinal tract is capable of digesting both plant and animal foods. Carnivores have typically a short bowel, while herbivores have a bowel length proportionally comparable to humans. The human teeth are composed of twenty molars, which are perfect for crushing and grinding plant foods. We have eight front incisors, which are well suited for biting into fruits and vegetables. Humans have only four canine teeth designed for meat eating. Our jaws swing both vertically to tear and laterally to crush. Carnivores' jaws swing only vertically.
It is a fact that a diet rich in plant foods is protective against many of the diseases that are extremely common today. On the other hand is a diet with a low intake of plant foods a causative factor in the development of these diseases.
Geir: If plant foods are necessary to protect us against 'many of the diseases that are extremely common today', how do you explain why is it that none of the meat-eating peoples I listed above suffer from any of these diseases?
Barry: Controversies in nutrition are interesting. I'm open to learning more, even if this violates with what we have learned in the medical school.
Barry,
The amount of energy salvaged from the colon will depend much on the diet and how much carbohydrate reaches there. The low values you quoted are due to low non digestible carbohydrate intake. So if you do not eat non-digestible carbohydrate you cannot get colonic energy.
Raw starches from cereals , which will have been harvested even before farming and some roots could be digested raw, starches in fruits such as bananas and dextrins and sugars in a wide range of other plants can also be digested without cooking. Pea starches can also be digested raw.
As for the meat eating populations - a major factor is the lower life expectancy and also we need to be clear that plant food was not ingested at all. In populations living on marine life then the high intakes of n-3 fatty acids were for sure protective and I agree plant life was eaten but these peoples also had low life expectancy so we do not know the longer term consequences. For some of the other peoples you mention I will explore whether there is reliable evidence they eat absolutely no plants and that their colon cancer rates are low.
I should clarify that I meant ice age type diets (like Inuits) may have contained no or little plant life.
Christine: Using average life expectancy as a measure of whether a population's diet is healthy is completely misleading. Just looking at averages in this way doesn't distinguish between neonatal deaths, deaths from accidents and predation, which are all high in peoples like the Inuit who live in harsh climates, and their diets. In fact, if the Inuit survive the rigours of their environment, they live at least as long as we do - without suffering the diseases we do. This applies across the globe from equator to poles.
But conditions have changed, and are still changing, as civilisation and Western diets are introduced and damage these people. For a clear picture of disease patterns and life expectancy, you really need to learn about their lives before they were so corrupted. If you have access to a decent library (Glasgow should be able to get books from either the Bodliean or British Libraries), read the following:
Price WA. Nutrition and Physical Degeneration: A Comparison of Primitive and Modern Diets and Their Effects. Paul B. Hoeber, Inc, New York, 1939.
Grant GM. Ocean to Ocean. Toronto, 1873.
Peary RE. Secrets of Polar Travel. New York: Century Co, 1917.
Stefansson V. The Fat of the Land. New York: Macmillan Press, 1957.
Stefansson V. Cancer: disease of civilization? American Book-Stratford Press, Inc. 1960.
Hanson EP. Journey to Manaos. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. 1938.
Dr. Weston A. Price (1870 – 1948) was a Cleveland dentist, who has been called the Charles Darwin of Nutrition. Searching for the causes of dental decay and physical degeneration he observed daily in his dental practice, he turned from test tubes and microscopes to study people with fine teeth the isolated primitives.
In 1939, he published Nutrition and Physical Degeneration. The book startled the worlds of science and nutrition with its documented evidence of primitive populations encountering civilisation, adopting modern diets, and finding that their health worsened. It remains the basic book in this area and is essential reading for those concerned with food and health.
http://www.bjorklundnutrition.net/2012/04/nutrition-physical-degeneration
Further to my last post, it is useful to study traditional people - and I enjoy reading contemporary accounts. As cancer was specifically studied in these people and comparisons made with 'civilized' populations, let us look at that disease.
Cancer: a disease of civilization
No cancer – from the Arctic to the Equator
For over a century and a half, medical missionaries, anthropologists and explorers searched in vain for cancer among the primitive peoples they visited. The Inuit have probably been isolated as long as any primitive people. Indeed, many still had a Stone Age culture until just a few decades ago, and they therefore provided excellent material for anthropological studies. Many who studied them remarked that: ‘Cancer is not to be found among the Eskimos.’
Dr Samuel King Hutton was a board member of the Moravian Mission to Labrador during the first half of the 20th century. Writing of the Labrador Eskimos in 1925, he said:
‘Some diseases common in Europe have not come under my notice during a prolonged and careful survey of the health of the Eskimos. Of these diseases the most striking is cancer. I have not seen or heard of a case of malignant new growth in an Eskimo. In this connection it may be noted that cookery holds a very secondary place in the preparation of food – most of the food is eaten raw, and the diet is a flesh one; also that the diet is rich in vitamins.’[1]
In his book, The Northwest Passage, Roald Amundsen’s wrote: ‘My sincerest wish for our friends the Nechilli Eskimos is, that civilization may never reach them.’[2]
The Inuit were not alone in being free from cancer. Away from western civilization cancer-free societies were ubiquitous. From the tropical frontier Dr Albert Schweitzer wrote in 1957: ‘On my arrival in Gabon, in 1913, I was astonished to encounter no cases of cancer . . . This absence of cancer seemed to me due to the difference in nutrition of the natives as compared with the Europeans.’[3] While there were no known cases of cancer when Dr Albert Schweitzer first went to Gabon, he noted sadly that: ‘In the course of the years we have seen cases of cancer in growing numbers in our region. My observations incline me to attribute this to the fact that the natives were living more and more after the manner of the whites.
In 1915, Dr Frederick L. Hoffman wrote an 826-page volume, The Mortality from Cancer Throughout the World.[4] Under ‘Cancer among Primitive Races’ Hoffman reported that:
‘The rarity of cancer among native races suggests that the disease is primarily induced by the conditions and methods of living which typify our modern civilization . . . cancer is exceptionally rare among the primitive peoples.’
This rarity of cancer in the 19th century was not restricted to primitive populations. In his important book, Cancer: Civilization and Degeneration, Dr John Cope discussed the early eating habits of the English and the rarity of cancer at the time. He noted in particular that cancers increased in England as the consumption of meat declined.[5]
Where does the fault lie?
As far as conventional medicine is concerned, the preferred methods for treating cancer are surgery, radiation, or chemotherapy. Cancer cells are removed or their growth slowed. But, significantly, no attempt is made to eliminate the disease by strengthening the body’s natural defences. Indeed, chemotherapy and radiation, by severely compromising the immune system, do exactly the opposite. Not surprisingly, many scientists have been profoundly disappointed by the trends in cancer research and their marked lack of success since the end of the 19th century.
In the preface to his book, Cancer: Nature, Cause and Cure, Dr Alexander Berglas of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, wrote in 1957: ‘Over the years, cancer research has become the domain of specialists in various fields. Despite the outstanding contributions of these scientists, we have been getting farther and farther away from our goal, the curing of cancer.’[6]
More than 30 years in the field of cancer research convinced Berglas that the methods of research: ‘had the peculiar result of becoming an obstacle to the study of the whole,’ and that to continue as they were: ‘is not to our advantage.’ ‘I have come to the conclusion’, he wrote, ‘that cancer may perhaps be just another intelligible natural process whose cause is to be found in our environment and mode of life.’
Berglas was writing particularly of the foods we ate and the way in which they were grown and prepared.
Interestingly, under ‘Prediction of Cancer Mortality’, Berglas said that the National Cancer Institute of the United States predicted (presumably in 1956) that: ‘32% of new-born children are expected to contract cancer during their lifetime.’ His estimate has turned out to be remarkably accurate.
Writing of the contrast between ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ countries since 1900, he said: ‘Accounts of regions free from cancer reveal the influence of civilization on the processes of cancer . . . We are faced with the grim prospect that the advance of cancer and of civilization parallel each other.’
We give up our traditional ways at our peril.
References
1. Hutton SK. Health Conditions and Disease Incidence among the Eskimos of Labrador. Poole, England: Wessex Press 1925.
2. Amundsen R. The Northwest Passage. London: Archibald Constable, 1908.
3. Schweitzer A. In: Berglas A. Cancer: Nature, Cause and Cure. Paris: Institute Pasteur, 1957.
4. Hoffman FL. The Mortality from Cancer Throughout the World. Newark, NJ: The Prudential Press, 1915.
5. Cope, J. Cancer: Civilization and Degeneration. London: 1932.
6. Berglas A. Cancer: Nature, Cause and Cure. Paris: Institute Pasteur, 1957.
It is very difficult to define an "healthy diet " suggesting diets based on a wide avialability of any kind of foods. It as to take into account two aspects 1) the first one is based on the uncertain suitability for many populations to have adequate sources of nutients having the best composition in terms of useful principles and low amount of possibly dangerous components ( for instance local condtions of available nutrients with large amount of fat or without a sufficient amount of basal minerals or aminoacids) - 2) the wide variability of nutrints to be sugested taking into account the local ambient chateristics and the kind of works interesting the greater part of the population : what could be suggested to a Norvegian fellow living in Norway could not be suggestet to the same indvidual working in Congo
Humans are, necessairily, omnivores. We were built to survive adverse situations and to have the ability to eat and digest almost anything. However, if you want to truely optimize your health, then a diet of 90% RAW fruits and vegetables, supplemented with sprouted nuts and seeds will bring you glowing health. I have enjoyed this dietary adventure, myself, and can report the following changes: lowered my excess weight dramaitcally, greatly reduced body odor, my grey hair returned to its natural dark brown, lessened joint pain, lessening of abdominal distress due to poor food choices, increased skin plasticity, and the list goes on. I suggest ignoring the US food pyramid, as it recommends the eating of meat and dairy and cooked foods, which are slowly undermining the health of many fat, mislead Americans. There is little credible research on this subject, so I recommend trying the diet yourself! There are many names for this type of eating: raw food diet, hygenic diet, hallalulla diet, etc. The key to a healty giving diet is enzymes which are killed with heat. I hope this helps you, personally, as the knowlege has helped me.
Could a diet consisting only of raw fruits and vegetables, sprouted nuts and seeds, actually reverse vascular deterioration and clogging? You bet! I hope you like salad.
I agree with many suggestions given by the previous Colleagues and with the importance to have a limited introduction of fat and of meat,.but I think that the pivotal problem is to have the actual avaliability of the suggested ideal foods. taking into account that many populations had to teat by centuries the foods that their habitat gave them : it could be very difficult for an Inuit have a diet based on fruits , vegetables and seeds., even if suggested.
This debate stopped, but I still think this topic may be interesting to discuss.
I would add some observations more. 1) It is suitable to remember and to remind that the debated topic on what to eat to avoid future damage is concerning only a minority of people , living in the developed and industrialized countries. The topic of the largest part o of the world population is to have something to eat to avoid to die of starvation and it can be of interest to note that it is possible to eat theoretically damaging foods , and to not have damage, if that food is less or more the only available thing to eat, as previously quoted by Sydney Bush . So the problem consists simply in having too much to eat and to eat too much, sometimes also by using trash foods, many times only for the troubles of daily life : I have to remember that in Italy during the last period of the Second World War it was quite impossible to see in the streets an obese individual : I was a 10 years old boy, but I still remember the troubled continuous research of my parents to find something to eat for their thin sons. 2) In the developed countries and particularly in metropolitan cities, the time to prepare the meals accurately choosing fresh foods and cooking the dishes is no more available for a lot of persons , which resort to industrial precooked foods , without having the time or the interest to evaluate by the labels their content in fat or carbohydrates , supposing that they are in conditions to correctly understand and weight the contents of the labels. 3) furthermore it is suitable to add that in precooked foods many not alimentary substances are added , as sweetenings , food dyes, antacid and anti-mould substances, correctors of taste and so on, that are materials to be metabolized and whose final possible effects are not completely known, even if licensed by the health authorities, 4) the easy availability of mechanic transportations by private cars and public transport services, and the poor availability of time to move by walking and the common poor availability of time, money and willingness to practice some sporting activity can make a sufficiently correct diet ,on base of age, gender and weight , to be excessive , inducing a slow increasing of the weight up to the obesity or in any case to an undesired variation of the ratio muscle mass/fat mass. In conclusion I think that the attention to a correct diet cold not result to be sufficient per se and that any desired attention and choice to a good alimentary behavior could be made impossible by external and forced circumstances due to the personal conditions of life.
Dear Sydney, thank for your appreciation of my intervention and I have to vote up for you for your brilliant and witty reply . I do not think that Italian people has the the good result that you mentioned notwhitstanding the use of pasta but on the contrary because using pasta and in the manner on which pasta is used : you have to take into account that for a lot of Italian persons pasta or rice is the fundamental component of the meals , adding to it a second dish of meat and or cheese in very moderate amount and often no more than twice a week because their not cheap cost , in return using greens and fruits . Furthermore it has to remind that the sauce of the usual home dish of pasta ii based on olive oil tomatoes and onion , or olive oil , onion, and other flavouring vegatables as the well known "pesto" used in Liguria, or based on oil , garlic, and chilli ,a very typical roman dish and used not only in typical restaurants. and considered in Rome a fast way to eat pasta. The Northern regions of Italy use more that the Southern regions butter. Certainly in each Region of Italy there are typical dishes of pasta using in the sauces for pasta butter, and meat of pork or of other animals, pork sausage and cream : but these dishes are used only occasionally at home and usually served in the resaturants as typical dishes. I do no drink red wine, that contrarily to what generally is believed abroad is abiitually used only on the Regions where this kind of wine is largely produced , and generally used elsewhere only to meet the dishes of meat, particularly grilled meat. I drink a little amount of white wine as a lot of persons living in Rome and in neighbourhooud of Rome , taking into accout that in our area the best produced wines are white wines . I hope you will consider my reply a useful contribution to tihis very interesting topic
I love to follow this topic and will add my 2 cents! In Finland we do not produce any wines but nowadays consume a lot and enjoy the sun packed into bottles in this, in winter, so dark end of the world. We also enjoy a lot of berries, raw and frozen and also heated into jams and syrup. We enjoy a lot of the fish as raw ("gravad salmon", pickeled herring etc.) or cooked, grilled etc but the meat usually as cooked. But what I really want to tell you about is our giant questionnaire to dog owners, the DOGRISK project, where we have asked owners about over 50 diseases and about the diet they serve their dogs and what we can see is this very exiting relationship between food and disease so that raw food significantly "saves" the dogs from diseases like dental tartar, osteoarthrits, cancer, IBD, allergy and atopy and many many more diseases. The cooked food either has no effect or then it has a very strong reverse effect so that the food actually significantly "leads" to the diseases...We are just only now writing the first article on this, so nothing is published yet but I think it would be wise to do some research about raw food in humans as well! If you do, I want to be in it - I cant wait to see some real work done on this!
Dear Mr. Hielm-Bjorkman, I agree about the concept of Raw Food. But there is dieefrence between animal and humah being. For example "Intestine" In some animals the intestine is very short and in some animals the intestine is very large. The lenghth of human intestine is 22 feet.where the maiority diagestion take place. so human being can digest both food i.e. Raw or cooked food.If the digestive capsity of a person is less then he should go for cooked food and if the digestive capsity is more then raw food is ok. Also this depends upon our daily work ,excersize, mental health and enviorment too. So i think that only raw food is not a good diet for health.
Its time for a new question: Why isn’t nutrition a bigger part of conventional medical school education? https://www.researchgate.net/post/Why_isnt_nutrition_a_bigger_part_of_conventional_medical_school_education
Back to the main issue here: What is a healthy diet? Is there more views?
A healthy diet is any diet that promotes physiological and psychological benefits to the user. To truly be healthy the diet should provide nutrition, functional benefits to life, and satisfaction, including pleasure during and after eating. There is no one diet that will do this or each individual. Much depends on genetics, activity, lifestyle, and culture.
I think that millions of life of human species on the Earth had sufficiently shown that he human race could survive and grow up , according to the biblical command, because the man can feeds on a wide kinds of foods, from meat of terrestrial animals and fishes and insects to the leafs and roots of plants. Certainly the man paid during a lot of centuries this possibility with a shortening of his life until the present days. But the present available knowledge of the possibility to have scientific and medical drives for a safe nutrition can still be applied only by a very little minority of the Earth population , including a not negligible part of people in the industrialized countries, for which the occasionally or economically available food is the only food to have , and consequently the best one for their survival. Furthermore, the suggestions in this concern are not yet well defined, with some exception , and I would to add, many persons having the possibility for a correct and safe nutrition seem to prefer a short but sweet life. Notwithstanding this last joke, there are no doubts of the relevant importance of the research in the field of nutrition as well as any effort do add a growing number of populations to be in conditions to practice a correct selection of foods for their nutrition
See also the new question:
Have food choices impact on our mental health?
http://tinyurl.com/nz9k8hl
My God. If one more speculative, or lazy researcher comments on the infeasibility of the raw food diet, I may just scream. Put your own bodies to the test! Watch the age and disease lift from your soul! on this diet, I experienced the following and more:
Weight loss
Mental clarity
increased energy
loss of body odor
loss of abdominal discomfort (chronic)
and here is the best part, I experienced spiritual clarity. An enhanced awareness of the world around me that can be likened to a natural high.
So go on, you diseased doubters. Keep eating meat and cooked food and telling the world that raw food wont help them.
Good luck with that crap you call food.
Creola
A healthy diet is one with variety. There are very, very few foods that contain all of the essential macro and micronutrients that humans need to survive. A pescetarian diet, in which the only "meat" eaten in the diet comes from fish, is often thought of as the most healthy diet in theory. The reason being is that fatty fishes contain not only good protein, but good fats, vitamins and minerals as well. Of course, one has to eat these foods in moderation because of our oceans' mercury and pollution problem. Being wholly vegetarian or even vegan presents itself to be a problem in many populations; because of the way soy mimics estrogen in the body, it should not be eaten in excess as a protein-replacement. It is also not a necessarily feasible diet for people living below the poverty line because of lower access to "alternative" protein products, and fresh produce in general.
In absolute term , it is difficult to define , but healthy diet must maintain you healthy . Healthy means , that diet which is able to sustain your daily metabolic requirement .
It is a complicated question. I would start trying to answer it with gedunken experiment. Assuming no stress factors such as fighting for food or surviving hostile weather. Our bodies without any clothing are comfortable around 25-30 degrees Celsius. We are not designed to be all daytime outside in the sun therefore I assume that moderate forest is in our equation of habitat. Our bodies are designed to be mobile. With these factors I hypothesize that our ideal habitat would be in tropical region near equator especially where temperature variation are small. Assuming that our intelligence is limited to instincts which means we don't cook, more likely our diet will be fruits, vegetables, insects and some fish (like sushi) all in raw form which can be eaten even today. The food quality must be high because food are better with each generation due to adaptation to its environment if there is no pollution, toxins, farming etc. Milk is definitely out of the picture. Except for babies and small kids drinking their mothers' milk, I cannot visualize adult man or woman chasing a cow or a goat to suck milk from cow's nipple. A cow will feel violated and her bull will not allow it happen.
In talking about diet, some people may think that they are talking about something like a carnival, they have free choice on their wish and they can take back home with what they want. For these people, I suggest them to read the book by Dr Geoffrey Cannon:
Book Dieting Makes You Fat
If you have choices on which food and how much food you can eat, then you are healthy enough, dieting is not fit for you.
Dieting is the ultimate rescue, and it is the dictation from the extreme body condition, as stated by Friedrich Nietzsche on the Luigi Cornaro diet: "He was not free to eat little or much; his frugality was not a matter of "free will" — he made himself sick when he ate more."
http://www.lexido.com/EBOOK_TEXTS/TWILIGHT_OF_THE_IDOLS_.aspx?S=7
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